The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [3030]
like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure.
In Sonnet LXX. the poet says of his friend:
And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days,
Either not assail'd, or victor being charged.
In Sonnet LXXVII. the poet says:
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;
Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know
Time's thievish progress to eternity.
Sonnet CXXVI. is as follows:
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow'st;
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:
Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be,
And her quietus is to render thee.
This is the last Sonnet which the poet addresses to his friend. Except the last two, all that follow are of his mistress, and are of the same theme as Sonnets XL., XLI., and XLII., and, we may fairly infer, are of the same date. If so, Sonnet CXXVI. is practically the very latest of the entire series, and we may deem it a leave-taking, perhaps not of his friend, but of the labor that had so long moved him. Perhaps for that reason its words should be deemed more significant, and it should be read and considered more carefully.[] All its thoughts seem responsive to the central suggestion that his friend appears much younger than he is. To the poet he seems still a boy because he has so held the youth and freshness of boyhood that it is not inappropriate to say that he holds in his power the glass of Time; Nature has plucked him back to show her triumph over Time, but she cannot continue to do so, but will require of him full audit for all his years.
For what age do such expressions seem natural as words of compliment; and when first would it have pleased us to be told that we looked younger than we were, and to one that loved us, still seemed but as a boy? Hardly much before thirty; till then we took but little account of years and would have preferred to be told that we seemed manlier rather than younger than we were. But on this let us further consult our poet. He tells us that at ten begins the age of the whining school-boy; at twenty of the lover, sighing like a furnace, and that of the soldier, a vocation of manhood, at thirty.[] To me it seems very clear that the rich poetic fancy of this Sonnet would be greatly lessened by assuming it to be addressed to a person below twenty-five years of age, and if it came, as may hereafter appear, from a person of fifty years or over, its caressing compliments and admonition would seem quite appropriate for one who had reached the fourth age of life. The indication of the last four Sonnets, to which I have referred, I submit, is in entire accord with that of the first group of seventeen.
I would not, however, leave this branch of the discussion without indicating what I deem is the fair inference or result from it. I do not claim that the age of the poet's friend can be certainly stated from anything contained in the Sonnets. It seems to me, however, that it mars the poetry and makes its notes seem inappropriate and discordant, to suppose that the poet had in mind a person below twenty-five years of age. To do so would make some, at least, of